LP 339 
.B8 M5 
Copy 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 115 444 7 



METAL EDGE. INC. 2007 PH 7.5 TO 9.5 RA.T. 



Lfi 339 
.B8 M5 
Copy 1 



The Reorganization of Public School 89 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

Report made January 19, 1915, to Presideut Thomas W. 
Churchill, Board of Education, New York City, 
by William Wirt 

On October 31st, 1914, the Parents' Association of Public School 
89, Brooklyn, asked for relief from the conditions existing in this 
school, because of overcrowding. To bring about this relief, a demand 
was made by the Taxpayers and Parents for the immediate erection 
of fourteen portable buildings to be followed by a new building, or an 
annex to the present building. With your permission I visited this 
school with a view to suggesting how the situation could be met. On 
November 6th a new school program was put into effect. 

I would point out that, although the initial reason for taking up 
the problem of Public School 89 was to relieve the congestion in 
that school, the sole purpose controlling the new program was to give 
to the children richer opportunities for study, work and play. 

As this demonstration in Public School 89 illustrates the method 
that it will be necessary to pursue in the reorganization of nearly 
all of your schools, it is important to note, step by step, the transfor- 
mation in this one school. 

Public School 89 lacks many of the modern facilities which are 
found in other schools in the city. For example, it does not have a 
gymnasium, woll arranged play-room, public play park with a direc- 
tor in charge, branch of the public library, well equipped auditorium, 
sufficient wardrobes, and baths. While it would have been much easier 
to make a demonstration in a better equipped school, yet the demon- 
stration at Public School 89 is all the more valuable because of the 
fact that it has been made with very limited facilities, and because it 
has been in operation for twelve weeks practically without any ex 
penditure for additional accommodations. 

The Old Progi-am of Public School 89. 

Prior to November 6, 1914, there were forty classes attending 
School 89, a building containing twenty-six class rooms, with a 
program planned according to instructions issued to elementary 
school principals — "General circular No. 4, 1913-1914, September 
23, 1913." Twelve of the forty classes, representing the upper 
grades, were on full time, having the exclusive use of tv/elve of the 
twenty-six class rooms. The remaining twenty-eight classes were or- 
ganized in two groups of fourteen classes each and were accommo- 
dated in the remaining fourteen class rooms, small auditorium and 
five cellar rooms, with a modification of the following program: 

Copyrigbt, 1915, by William Wirt 



Old Program at P. S. 89, Brooklyn 



V 



K^^;^ 



^^ 



^ 



School Hours 


14 Class 


Rooms 


Opening Exercises and Study in 
Auditoriiun and Playgrouhd 


8:30- 9:30... 


First Group — 


14 Classes 




9:30-10:30. .. 


First Group 




Second Group — 14 Classes 


10:30-11:30. . . 


Second Group- 


—14 Classes 


First Group — 14 Classes 


11:30-12:30. . . 






First Group — At Luncheon 


12:30- 1:30. . . 


First Group 


Second Group — At Luncheon 


1:30- 2:30... 


First Group 




Second Group — At Lunch.son 


2:30- 3:30. .. 


Second Group 






3:30- 4:30. .. 


Second Group 







Since, with the old program twelve classrooms were used exclu- 
sively by twelve classes, the burden of the over-crowding was placed 
entirely upon the remaining fourteen class rooms. These fourteen 
rooms had a multiple use for eight hours a day, but the auditorium 
and playground were used only two hours a day. This means that 
the auditorium and playground v/ere congested during the short time 
they were in use. When it rained and all the children were required 
to be in the building from 9:30 to 11:30, nine classes were forced to 
use the five cellar rooms at one time as study rooms. No provision 
was made for the systematic use of other child welfare agencies. 



The Old Program Was Not Intended to Secure Greater Facilities 
for Children than the Ordinary Single System School 
Offers. 

The principle underlying the old program was that of securing 
the traditional five-hour school day by supplementing the four hours 
in the class room with an additional hour in playground and audi- 
torium. Unfortunately, the latter hour was used as much as possible 
for study in quarters that were never intended for use as a study 
room and cannot be made satisfactory for study. No one offers the 
argument that such a five hour school is better or even as good as 
five hours of regular class room work in the ordinary single system 
school. 

This program was not intended to secure greater facilities for 
children than the ordinary single system school offers. The purpose 
was to secure as nearly as possible the traditional xoork of the regu- 
lar five-hour full time school, and it was considered only as a tem- 
porary expedient until a sufficient number of neio schools could be 
built to provide the regulation full time school. Since the main 
object was the building of additional school buildings for permanent 
relief, no funds could be expended upon this temporary double sys- 
tem expedient. / 

2 

©CIA398()21 
APR 16 1915 



The Part Time Problem. 

I do not know ot a finer presentation ot the part time school prob- 
iem thaVtLt of your special committee on Part Time ^Docnme„ 
No 9-1913) The criticisms that I have made of the Old Program at 
PS. 89 were made by the Fart Time Committee as follows: 

Two Classes With Two Teachers In One Boom. 

•■one 0. the .<ievices employed to keep down the num,„_„, 

^Sy='"or°1hl?elhS '^f t'eaSerr'btve^e^en alsi.ned to teach 

:s!;^H¥E'?Lsrsi srs^/K 

:3H3Sna!^r^ t^r^tf-r deJa^^^JthJ 
'^°Tn-"advanta.e o, this device is .^- U permUs fnller^operation 
;;irhrh"Sn"p^raSrtefchri^;e3e^o focus attention in t^^ 

Tt.:^j!l^'Z..ii.''S aSltion "^^ri." experienced 
teacher." 

Circulating or Alternating Classes. 

.,i,S"r^sraJ?o^ZdSqjLf^S^fSdr:s^ 
fu -KtSenra-eo^kSr ;is^iSs r,',- 

obliged to carry their materials with them and are noi dui« 
as satisfactorily as if they had a fixed abode. 

Classes in Assembly Rooms. 

"Few Assembly Rooms have adequate equipment ^^or proper 

Few Assemoiy j ^ ventilation are usually unsatis- 

claes instruction. The lighting ana ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

factory., ^he difficulty or ^JJ^ ^ ^g^niy interferes with progress. 

rrf's-tfain- 1? t-e'acft n A-mh".yHooL not Intended f^^^ c ass 

^.roSs^:n''h^ctrta7n';'=Jr^S:h'e%L=;uliL'doe'rn''otimpr„v^emat- 

ters." 

Loaned or Rented Rooms. 

-Rented or loaned rooms seldom have satisfactory light, venti- 
lation or equipment." 

Rooms in Temporary Buildings. 

•<No matter how well constructed temporary or Poitable build- 

-SV*-?ot^[.!ra'rnni|LM^^^ 
cannot be evenly distributed in cold weather. 



Rooms in Gymnasiums, Libraries and Playgrounds. 

"Gymnasiums, libraries and playgrounds were never intended 
for classroom purposes and their use as such is open to many if 
not all of the objections cited above. In addition, such use de- 
prives pupils of advantages which the equipment was intended to 
afford. 

Therefore your committee emphasizes its conclusion that the 
number of part time classes actually existing is no indication of the 
number of classes that should be on part time if various make- 
shifts were not employed." 

Need of New Buildings. 

"All the devices that may be employed to avoid or reduce part 
vime are, at best, but temporary expedients. It is difficult to develop 
ichool or class spirit when the school is so crowded that pupils are 
being marshaled in and out continually. 

Every pupil is entitled to an individual seat and desk. He is 
entitled to a place in which his outer clothing may be secured. The 
teacher is entitled to the exclusive possession of a classroom which 
she may decorate according to her taste and in the decoration of 
which her pupils will naturally take part and pride. But, to give 
every child a seat according to the legal capacity adopted, would 
mean the immediate construction of buildings containing 100,000 
sittings. This would be 50 buildings of 2,000 sittings each, or 100 
buildings of 1,000 sittings each. If it were possible to begin at 
once the construction of such new buildings, they would hardly be 
available for two years, during which time conditions would con- 
tinue to grow more and more serious. In view of this fact your 
committee reiterates that its recommendations are merely tem- 
porary expedients to relieve intolerable conditions, and are in no 
way intended to minimize the necessity for constructing new build- 
ings. Therefore, these plans to utilize to the fullest extent the 
facilities provided are not advanced with the idea that the condi- 
tions which would be '^.stablished by their adoption are to be perma- 
nent." 

The New Program at Public School 89 is Not a Part Time Plan. 

The new program at Public School 89 is in no sense an effort to 
relieve part time by giving the children as nearly as possible a five 
hour traditional school day, until a new building can be built. 

The sole purpose determining the program noio in use at this 
tchool is that of securing a six hour day and much richer oppor- 
tunities in a study, work and play school uith a co-ordination of the 
activities of all child welfare agencies. 

In describing this program I shall take up (1) the permanent 
improvements necessary to make the work at Public School 89 thor- 
oughly effective, (2) the cost of such improvements compared with 
the other methods suggested for meeting the situation, (3) a descrip- 
tive o' tline of the new program, (4) how the new program offers 
greater OLTcrtunitles for all children in a study, work and play 



school, (5) how the new program is founded on a sound economic 
basis, (6) opportunity new program affords as a clearing house for 
all children's activities and (7) opportunity offered for vocational 
training. 

I know that the new program of Public School 89 as it has been 
during the twelve weeks' trial, without a single penny spent for 
building improvements is a better school than the traditional five hour 
school where each class has its own exclusive class room. But it 
can be made a convincing demonstration to parents and school offi- 
cials by providing the necessary additional facilities. 

The parents were at first antagonistic to the new program be- 
cause they did not understand. But after the program had been in 
operation two weeks, a meeting was held with twenty-two mothers 
representing the executive committee of the Parents' Association. 
They decided that the new program had given relief and that it would 
succeed if necessary improvements could be made in the Building. 
After twelve weeks' experience with the new program, without any 
expenditure for additional facilities, the parents came out enthusi- 
astically in support of the movement to give the new viewpoint of 
public school service a trial. 

The parents of the school feel that they ought to get the full 
benefits of making a more economical use of their school plant. The 
only question that I have not been able to answer is "How many hun- 
dred years will it be before we get the gymnasium, etc?" If they 
could have seen real money immediately available for these improve- 
ments as was suggested in my report of July 31, 1914, recommending 
the appropriation of $150,000.00 for the equipment and remodeling of 
six experimental schools, the opposition would have been negligible. 

Permanent Improvements Which are Needed to Make the New 
Program at Public School 89 Effective. 

By making the following improvements at Public School 89 the in- 
crease in capacity, 16 class rooms, and additional facilities can be 
made permanent: 

1 — On the site now owned by the city adjacent to the present build- 
ing erect a building containing a gymnasium, swimming pool and 
branch of the public library. 
2 — Equip the auditorium with a suitable platform, stereopticon lan- 
tern and motion picture machine. 
3 — Equip two class rooms for science laboratories, two class rooms 

for drawing studios and one class room for music studio. 
4 — Provide wardrobe accommodations for sixteen extra classes. 
5 — Equip each class room for use by two teachers. 
6 — Purchase remainder of block for permanent playground. 

With the exception of the playground, the foregoing improvements 
will cost approximately $40,000.00. 



Comparison of the Cost of These Improvements With the Cost of 
Other Means of Meeting the Situation. 

The estimated cost of the site and the proposed new fifty-one 
unit school building requested to relieve Public Schools 89, 152 and 
90 will approximate $510,000.00. If these funds were applied to im- 
proving fen schools according to the- method proposed for Public 
School 89 in the foregoing section, at least 200 permanent additional 
class room accommodations would be made available. In the more 
modern schools a less expenditure will secure greater capacity 

It the fourteen portable buildings had been erected as demanded 
the monthly cost for janitor service alone for these fourteen portable 
buildings would have been $140.00. A large added maintenance oper- 
ating cost and capital investment would have been required if relief 
had been secured in the manner desired. The increased cost would 
not have brought with it additional facilities other than the exclusive 
right to a desk for each child. The twenty per cent, increase in 
school time, which takes the children from the demoralizing life of 
the street, and the other advantages of the new program in public 
school 89 would have been lost. 

Since a fifty-one unit building adds accommodation for only forty- 
eight traditional full time classes, the satisfactory accommodation of 
sixteen additional classes at Public School 89 would justify the ex- 
penditure of one-third the cost of the new building and site upon 
Public School 89, or approximately $170,000.00. But, as has just been 
pointed out, it is not necessary to spend anything like this amount 
If one hundred of the most congested typical schools were selected 
I believe that an average expenditure of $40,000.00 for each school' 
would be sufficient to provide the immediately necessary additional fa- 
cilities for a duplicate school, work, study and play program. Some 
schools would need play space; others, swimming pools; and some 
gymnasiums. $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 might be sufficient for some 
schools and $60,000.00 to $70,000.00 be required for others. 

$4,000,000.00 toould thus permanently increase school capacity by 
at least 2,000 school rooms, and, distributed in the one hundred most 
congested centers, would practically relieve your part time situation 
Many schools with slight congestion could reorganize their pro- 
grams without much expense. Many undesirable school plants could 
be sold and the funds thus secured used for the reorganization of 
desirable schools. A very large increase in school capacity can thus 
be thus secured for future growth in population. A relatively few 
new buildings would have to be built in localities where the increase 
In capacity of present buildings would not be sufficient 



Description of the New Program at Public School 89 

Under the Old Program there were only forty classes, but one 
class was very large and was divided into two sections with two 
teachers in charge. The number of pupils attending this school is 
increasing rapidly and therefore a program for forty-two classes was 
planned. The two additional classes should not be added until accom- 
modations are secured for the library in the new gymnasium quar- 
ters, one of the necessary improvements listed on page 5. 

The forty-two classes in the New Program are divided into two 
Duplicate Schools of twenty-one classes each. In the following pro- 
grams these duplicate schools are designated as the X School and the 
Y School. Description of each school will be taken up in turn. 

The X School. 

Twenty-one of the twenty-six class rooms are used for the desired 
academic Instruction in the regular school subjects: arithmetic, lan- 
guage, reading, history and geography. The five remaining class 
rooms are used for the special school subjects — science, drawing and 
music. 

In addition to the twenty-six class rooms, the school has a manual 
training shop, a domestic science laboratory, a small auditorium, five 
cellar playrooms and a kindergarten. Because the class rooms set 
aside for special work are not yet equipped, for the time being they are 
used for additional regular class work. Since there is no library 
or librarian and since the manual training and cooking teachers are 
at the building only half time, two extra special teachers are in 
charge of the playground. 

The X School will have the following activities and facilities 
for carrying them on as soon as the improvements recommended are 
made. 





Rep-ular 
Activities 


Special Activities 


Type of 


General 

Exercises 


Play and 
Phys. Training 




Work 


Academic 
Instruction 


Special Work 


Facilities 
used by 
each type 
of work 


21 Class 
Rooms 


Auditorium 


Playground 
Play Rooms 
Pool and Baths 
Gymnasium 


2 M. T. Shops 
2 Science Lab's 
2 Drawing 
• Studios 
1 Music Studio 
1 P. Library 



The 21 classes are divided into three divisions of 7 classes each, 
as follows: 

Div. 1 — 7 classes, 6th, 7th and 8th grades. 
Div. 2 — 7 classes, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. 
Div. 3 — 7 classes, 1st and 2nd grades. 

7 



All the 21 classes from the first grade to the eighth take part In 
these activities according to the following program. 

The X School. 





Regular Activities 


Special Activities 


School 
Hours 


Academic 
Instruction 


General 
Exercises 


Play and Phys. 
Training 


Special 
Work 


8:30- 9:20 


Arithmetic 
Divs. 1. 2, 3 








9:20-10:10 


Language 
Divs. 1, 2. 3 








10:10-11:00 




Div. 1 


Div. 3 


Div. 3 


11:00-12:00 


Entire X 


.School at Luncheon 




12:00- 1:00 


Reading 
Divs. 1, 2. 3 








1:00- 1:60 


Hiatory & Geo. 

uivs. 1, 2, 3 








1:50- 2:40 




Div. 3 


Div. 2 


Div. 1 


3:40- 8:S0 




Div. 2 


Div. 3 


Div. 1 


8:30- 4:30 






Div. 1 





Summarj of Time Schedule. 

PUPILS' TIME, MINUTES PER WEEK. All pupils have twenty per 
cent more time in school. 



School 
Depart- 
ment 


Division 1 

Grades 6-8 


Division 2 
Grades 3-5 


Division 8 

Grades 1 and 2 




X 

School 


N. Y. 
Minimum 


X 

School 


N. T. 
Minimum 


X 

School 


New York 
Minimum 


Academic... 
Audltorlua. 

Play 

Work 


1060' 

260' 

After 

School 

600' 


840' 
76' 

80' 
280' 


1050' 
260' 

260' 
260' 


840' 
76' 

ICO' 
250' 


1050' 
260' 

600' 

Included 

time. 


Ist 
880' 
76' 

300' 
In ac 


2nd 
1090' 
76' 

180' 
ademic 


Total 

P'ull time.. 


1800' 
1800' 


1276' 
1600' 


1800' 
1800' 


1315' 
1500' 


1800' 
1800' 


1255' 
1200' 


1345' 
1500' 



Teachers* Activities. 

The actual time spent by the teachers according to the New Pro- 
gram is no longer than the established time. Each teacher has 210 
minutes In Regular Activities and 100 minutes in Special Activities 
with 20 minutes for assembling of pupils, a total of 330 minutes, 
which is the established time. 

8 



The two periods In Special Activities should be departmentalized. 
Certain teachers should give both periods to play and physical train- 
ing and other teachers should give both periods to music, drawing, 
science, etc. The manual training teachers and the public librarian 
release two teachers from the work periods, who may be assigned 
play and physical training. Six teachers should run the auditorium 
period and the remaining teacher of the division should be assigned 
to play and physical training. The only extra teachers are the man- 
ual training teachers. If there are a few teachers who cannot do 
the work of the Special Activities successfully, they may give all 
of this time to Regular School Activities. The teachers so displaced 
from Regular Activities may give all of their time to physical train- 
ing and play, music, drawing, science, shop work, etc. 

About half of the teachers will have an extra 50-minute period In 
the school for grading papers, planning school work, looking after in- 
dividual needs of children or professional study. In my judgment it 
would be well if all teachers did their supplementary school work at 
the school rather than at home. Less energy will be required to do 
this work at school than at home, and the public will have a better 
understanding of the teacher's work. 



How the New Program at Public School 89 Ofifers Richer 

Opportunities to All Children in a Study, 

Work and Play School 

Anything added to the academic school program that will compel 
the immediate use of the academic work will help put the children 
into a condition favorable for teaching. You must first get chil- 
dren into a condition to be taught before you can succeed in teaching 
them. The auditorium, play and special work of the school represent 
as far as possible actual life conditions for the direct application of 
the academic instruction of the regular school hours. 

The School Auditorium. 

The auditorium work supplements and motivates the school 
studies. Recently at Public School 89 I saw the following in an audi- 
torium period conducted by the sixth grade English class. The chil- 
dren had written in their regular class room exercises compositions on 
the subject of "Table Manners." They were asked to write in a form 
suitable for dramatization. The best composition was selected for 
dramatization. A half dozen children represented a nurse, a maid, 
and four children who had been left in charge of the nurse while the 
father and mother were in Europe. The father and mother were due 
to return soon, and the nurse was training the children for the home- 
coming. A dining room table was placed upon the stage and it was 
set ready for dinner with dishes from the cooking room. The boy, ol 
course, came to the table with soiled hands and had to be sent to the 
lavatory. One of the children attempted to drain a glass by throwing 
his head back and tipping the glass over his face. He was most 
severely reprimanded. In a similar manner the proper use of spoons, 
knives and forks; the handling of soup, bread, meats, etc.; the masti- 
cation of food; proper conversation at table; all were illustrated most 
thoroughly. The 300 children in the audience were held spellbound. 
The stage is very low and the children in the audience had to stand 
in order to see, but there was not the slightest confusion. 

There could be no question that this exercise given by children 
made a much greater impression than any teacher could have created 
by lecturing to the children on the subject. The auditorium period 
served as the Incentive for the class room composition exercises, pro- 
vided a need for public speaking, and contributed effective instruction. 

Following the presentation all the children were given a period 
of freedom for talking and moving about the room. "While no doubt 
much of the conversation was irrelevant, and I know of no objection 
to its being so, yet nearly all that I heard was inspired by the lesson 
on table manners. Here the auditorium exercise furnished a sub- 
ject for conversation, and the conversation in turn reinforced the im- 
pression made by the exercise. 

10 



Following the free period fifteen minutes were given to chorus 
singing. The teaching of music is done in the special music room. 
The auditorium hour supplements this instruction and provides the 
opportunity to create and enjoy music. It will not be many years 
before this school will have special choruses, glee clubs, quartettes, an 
orchestra and a band. 

Seven teachers with their respective classes use the auditorium at 
one time. Teachers are assigned to auditorium groups so that each 
group will include a teacher who can direct the music and a teacher 
who can play the piano. Eventually each of the auditorium periods 
will be run by six teachers. The seventh teacher will be assigned to 
the playground. The manual training and shop teachers, the libra- 
rian and persons from outside the school can use the auditorium. 
Each of the six auditorium teachers with her class will be responsible 
for a twenty-minute program only once in two weeks. The class, not 
the teacher, should give the program. The six auditorium teachers 
select one of their number as leader for a week, month, or any other 
time division that they choose. The auditorium work may be pre- 
sented in a great variety of ways — addresses, papers, stereopticon lec- 
tures, motion pictures, laboratory demonstrations, etc. 

The Value of the Other Special Activities. 

I believe that the program given above for the X School is 
planned solely with a view to providing the best possible facilities for 
this school of twenty-one classes. The children of the X School cannot 
use the regular twenty-one class rooms more than 210 minutes, if 
they are to use the auditorium, the playground and the special rooms 
as planned, unless they are given a longer school day. This would be 
true even though all of the school facilities were idle half of the time 
with only one school using them. I do not know of any reason why 
the class room work supplemented by manual training In regular 
manual training shops, drawing and music In special studios, science 
in special laboratories and library work in a real library, with the 
best of equipment and specially trained teachers is not better than 
trying to do all of these things In a much less efficient way in reg- 
ular class rooms. 

Most certainly playgrounds, gymnasiums and swimming pools are 
good things for children to have. I believe that gardens, work shops, 
drawing and music studios are good things for children to have. I 
believe that museums, art galleries and libraries are good things for 
children to use systematically and regularly. In my judgment oppor- 
tunities for religious instruction, private teachers of music and assist- 
ing in desirable home work are good things for children, and this new 
and more elastic program offers a greater chance for taking advan- 
tage of them. So also are co-operative classes between the academic 

n 



school and the industrial activities of the school business, repair, im- 
provement and accounting departments, and between the school and 
industrial activities outside the school. In what way will the use of 
these facilities handicap a child in his efforts to secure an education? 

Anything that gives the child a chance to use what the school is 
trying to teach him, anything that creates a need for the mastery of 
the things the school is trying to teach, should be a help to the teach- 
ing process. We often hear adults say that if they had their school 
days to live over again, they would improve them better than they did. 
What a pity that when we had a chance to educate ourselves we did 
not want to, and that now when we do not have the opportunity we 
would like to educate ourselves. What brought us as adults to a 
realization of the value of an education? Is it not the fact that every 
day we are disappointed in not being able to do the things that we 
-night do, or have the things that we might have, if we had properly 
trained our hands and our brains? It is the bitter disappointments in 
life that make us appreciate our lost opportunities. If our children 
are to appreciate their school opportunities now while they can make 
use of them, we must find a way for them to be actually disappointed 
now because they do not have the things that the school can teach. 
Such disappointments will create a desire to learn what the school 
can teach. 

In place of telling the child to work hard on his arithmetic and 
language now because he will need them ten years later when he 
leaves the school and enters the real life of industry and commerce, 
the child has a chance to apply what he has learned of arithmetic 
and language in these real life departments of the school immediately 
every school day. The community life of the school and the com- 
munity life of the neighborhood automatically create real needs for 
mastering the academic subjects of the school. 

Good teachers should be able to do better teaching in worth-while 
subjects under such a program. The subjects that count most for suc- 
cess in life will be constantly and automatically motivated every 
Bchool day. Even the purely cultural subjects are motivated. The 
direct contact with the automatic processes of industry reveals the 
necessity for cultural training for the individual in industry and com- 
merce. 

Poor teachers should do better teaching with such a school pro- 
gram. However, I doubt if any school program can make poor teach- 
ing good. This elastic program of work, study and play is not offered 
as a panacea for all school ills. In addition to a superior program 
there must be good management in order to secure a superior school. 



12 



How the New Program is Founded on a Sound 
Economic Basis 

Unfortunately the program described requires twenty-six clas^ 
rooms for twenty-one classes of children in addition to the auditorium, 
play space, library, work shops, etc. No facility during the school 
day is used for more than half the time by the X School. Fortunately 
the auditorium need be large enough to accommodate only one-third 
of the X School. The same is true of the play space and the special 
work facilities. There is a great economy in using the facilities 
named for three periods by alternate groups each representing one- 
third of the school. But a higher first cost and a greater operation 
and maintenance cost would be justifiable in all of these facilities, in- 
cluding the regular class rooms, if they could be used longer and 
accommodate more children. 

Since the X School can use any of these facilities only half of the 
time, what objection can there be to another school of twenty-one 
classes using the facilities when the X School cannot use them? Fol- 
lowing is a program for such a duplicate school, designated Y: 

Y School. 





Regular 
Activities 


Special Activities 


School 
Hours 


Academic 
Instruction 


General 

Exercises 


Play and Phys. 
Training 


Special 
Work 


8:30- 9:20 




Div. -J. 


Div. 3 


Div. 1 


9:20-10:10 




Div. 3 


Div. 2 


Div. 1 


10:10-11:00 


Arithmetic 
Divs. 1, 2. 3 








11:00-12:00 


Language 
Divs. 1, 2, 3 








12:00- 1:00 


Entire School at Luncheon 


1:00- 1:50 




Div. 1 


Div. 3 


Div. 2 


1:50- 2:40 


Reading 
Divs. 1, 2, 3 








2:40- 3:30 


History & Geo. 
Divs. 1, 2, 3 






J 


3:30- 4:30 






Div. 1 1 



The Y School has the same time as the X School, for both pupils 
and teachers. Neither school could use any facility any more If the 
other school were not there, but both schools have better facilities 
every hour of the day because the other school is there. Forty-two 
classes of children are thus accommodated in twenty-six class rooms. 

13 



In place of building a sixteen-room additional school with its initial 
cost of site and construction, and its annual cost of janitor service, heat- 
ing, maintenance, etc., an equivalent expenditure can be made for the 
permanent improvement and increased operating cost of the twenty- 
six room school. 

While this program makes two schools in one possible, primarily 
it is planned to provide a longer school day, i. e., six hours in place 
of five, and greater facilities for each child during each of the six 
hours. Twenty-six class rooms are used to accommodate one school of 
twenty-one classes. In addition there must be an auditorium, play- 
ground, gymnasium, manual training shops and domestic science 
laboratories, drawing and music studios, science laboratories and 
branch of the public library. It is evident that the first thought has 
not been economy of school expenditure, but economy of the resources 
of the child. 

One hundred minutes' daily play is given to the primary grades, 
for play takes the place of work for small children. This play is 
gradually transformed into work, fifty minutes' work and fifty min- 
utes' play in intermediate grades, and one hundred minutes' work in 
the grammar grades, as the older children use their after-school 
leisure time for play. Thus the play impulse is transformed into a 
work impulse. Productive activities are substituted for non-productive 
activities. Work is made constructive play. 

Vocational training in the elementary schools does not mean 
teaching children hoiv to use a few tools. Only a relatively few per- 
sons can become plumbers, electricians, sheet metal workers, machin- 
ists or carpenters, and they cannot learn these trades at twelve or 
thirteen years of age. The best type of vocational training in the 
elementary school will be provided, not by the addition of a special 
vocational school department for a few children, but by enlarging the 
function of the entire elementary school from the kindergarten 
through the high school, to meet changed industrial and social con- 
ditions. 

The school must learn how to do its part in the training of all 
types and classes of children in the Art of Right Living from the 
standpoint of the producer as well as of the consumer. This may seem 
to be an idealistic, impractical program for an ordinary school, but 
I believe it to be practical and that it can be realized in all ordinary 
schools. 

At first thought it may seem that the problem of financing such 
enlarged school opportunities will be a serious one, but the facts are 
that to finance an ideal school is not a problem. The great problem 
is to know what kind of school will meet the children's needs and 
how to run such a school when you have secured it. You can afford 
any kind of school desired, if ordinary economic public service prin- 
ciples are applied to public school management. 

14 



The first principle in turning waste into profit in school manage- 
ment is to use every facility all the time for all the people. The 
class rooms, the auditorium, the playground, the gymnasium, the 
swimming pool, the work shops, the studios, the museums, and the 
libraries should be in constant use all day long by all children alter- 
nately, and out of school hours they should be used by adults. 

I do not know any good reason why all children should be on the 
playground at the same time. Yet that has been the established 
custom. Why should we purchase at public expense a private space 
of ground for each child to play in as his exclusive personal posses- 
sion? If a school enrolls 2,400 children and has one acre for a play- 
ground, each child has as his share only twenty square feet if all 
children play at once. But if the children play in separate groups of 
400 at different times during the day, then each child would have as 
his share of the playground one hundred and twenty square feet in 
which to play. I doubt if any city can provide ample play facilities 
for all its children, if they all play at the same time. 

School practice still dings to the idea that all persons in school 
want to do the same thing at the same time. The argument is made 
that of the twenty-four hours of the day and the 365 days of the year 
only certain hours and certain days can be used for certain things 
and that each child must have his own private school desk, auditorium 
seat, play space, etc., for his exclusive use. Tradition says that all 
school children must be in the auditorium for opening exercises from 
9:00 to 9:15; in class rooms from 9:15 to 12:00 and from 1:00 to 3:00; 
In playground and library from 3:00 to 5:00. It would not do at all 
to have a child in a class room from 3:00 to 3:30, in a library from 
2:00 to 3:00, in a playground from 10:00 to 11:00, or in an auditorium 
from 1:00 to 2:00. 

The facts are that there are many things in school and out of 
school that all people do not want to do at the same time, or can just 
as well do at different times. 

What would you think of a city park system that limited the use 
of the parks to 3:00 to 5:00 o'clock five days a week for only 200 days 
of the 365 days of the year, and tried to have everybody use the parks 
daily? With all the people in the parks at one time each person 
would have as his share of the park a space equal to the park area 
divided by the total number of persons served. A very foolish park 
system, you say. All people do not want to use the parks at the same 
time and there is hardly any time when no one wants to use the 
parks. 

The modern city is largely the result of the application of the 
principle of the common use of public facilities that we need for per- 
sonal use only part of the time. We are willing that other people 
use public conveniences when we cannot use them. How many street 
cars would be required and what sort of cars and service could we 

15 



afford, if each citizen had to have his own private street car seat for 
his own exclusive use? How many limited trains and Lusitanias 
would be required and what sort of trains and steamboats could we 
afford if each person had to have his own private seat in a train and 
state room in a boat for his own perpetual exclusive use? Private, 
exclusive use of transportation facilities would turn us back to the 
"one-horse shay" and the fishing smack. How many hotel rooms, 
dining tables, etc., would be required and of what sort would they be 
if each visitor to New York during the year had to have reserved 
throughout the year his own private bedroom and dining table for his 
own exclusive, limited use? Yet the hotel room used only four days 
during the year would be in use longer than the average school audi- 
torium is used during the year. 

Modern public conveniences are made possible only by their 
common use, and the fact that we do not all want to use the same 
public convenience at the same moment. We are willing to have some 
one else use our public library, look at our pictures in our public 
museum, walk in our public park, sleep in our Pullman berth or in our 
hotel bedroom, or travel on our steamboat, when we are otherwise 
engaged. 

The great masses of our children in our cities can never have 
ample play spaces, suitable auditoriums, gymnasiums and swimming 
pools, work shops, libraries, museums, or even ordinary school rooms 
for study and recitation, if all children at the same time must be 
using each of these facilities separately. 

New York City has averaged $7,000,000.00 a year for school build- 
ings and sites during the past fifteen years, and even with that ex- 
penditure has not been able to provide enough class rooms for each 
school child to have the private exclusive possession of a school seat, 
to say nothing of providing additional facilities. 

Document No. 8, 1914, contains requests of your Board of Super- 
intendents for the erection of new buildings costing $30,000,000.00 to 
$40,000,000.00 to provide for present overcrowded conditions in your 
schools. The $105,000,000.00 spent during the past fifteen years should 
have been one-third greater in order to provide an exclusive desk in 
a class room for each of your 750,000 school children. It seems to be 
absolutely necessary that some other method be tried in order to 
catch up, i. e., to secure a sufficient number of ordinary school rooms. 
Fortunately the per capita cost for accommodations in audi- 
torium, playgrounds, play rooms and gymnasiums is less than that 
for regular class rooms The regular class room is the most expensive 
unit in a school. Many persons in New York are of the opinion that 
ample playground space is impossible in New York City because of 
the high land values. Class room space coets approximately $200 per 
pupil. Forty square feet of play space is sufficient for each pupil and 
can be purchased at five dollars per square foot with the $200 pupil 

16 



class room unit cost for which it is substituted. The class room pupil 
unit cost averages $200 for the entire city, but land values do not 
average five dollars per square foot. Roof playgrounds cost only one 
dollar and fifty cents per square foot. Besides there is a great amount 
of public play space now available, as well as many gymnasiums, 
play rooms, play roofs and auditoriums. 

Ample accommodations may, therefore, be provided in all facili- 
ties, if they are in use constantly, by alternating groups, at less cost 
than regular class rooms alone may be provided on the basis of the 
exclusive, private possession of a desk and one-fortieth of a class room 
by each pupil. 

A work, study and play school is extravagant only in the oppor- 
tunities offered children. 



1? 



A Clearing House for Children's Activities 

All persons do not wish to send their children to school at the 
same hour in the morning. Some prefer an early hour, like 8:30, 
while others prefer a later hour, like 9:00 or 9:30. Since the X and Y 
schools are exact duplicates, any family may choose either the early 
hour school or the late hour school. There are always enough fami- 
lies without a decided preference to balance the attendance at the two 
schools. 

All churches and many settlement houses will be glad to provide 
religious instruction during the week days in their respective churches 
and houses with special religious teachers in charge employed by the 
churches, if they can secure their children regularly in groups during 
the entire day and each day of the week. Many mothers would like 
their daughters to give an hour or two daily to private music work, 
provided their children could go on with their class in the regular 
subjects and substitute the music for a part of the special school 
work. Many private music teachers would be glad to meet their stu- 
dents during school hours. Many homes would be able to use the time 
of children profitably for the home and the children, if they could 
secure their respective children at the right time. But the estab 
lished school takes all of the children at one time just early enough 
and holds all of the children just late enough to prevent any other 
child welfare agency doing verv much for them. Also the established 
school program requires the same effort from all children alike regard- 
less of their outside duties. 

The X and Y programs described permit children to leave the 
school during the auditorium, play and special work periods for duties 
elsewhere that are equivalent to the school work so displaced. In 
many inGcances the work substituted for the school activities is much 
more proritable for the particular children interested. I am aware 
that this privilege may be abused. In your worst tenement districts 
there might be a disposition to have the children come home for 
sweat-shop work. The school, not the parents, must determine whether 
the child is to be excused. There is no good reason why all children 
should be permitted a short school day if it is not for their personal 
good. We are not now concerned with the traditional school that 
forces all persons to do the same thing, in the same way and at the 
same time. The new school is flexible and may be adapted to differ- 
ent types of communities and to the several individuals in a single 
school. The children may have a long or a short day, early or late, 
academic work emphasized or shop work emphasized, all of their time 
In school or, if it is to the advantage of the child, he may have part 

18 



of the school time out of school. Not many schools should be exactly 
alike. The standards for each school should be those demanded by the 
needs of the individual children attending that particular school. 

An Elastic Program. 

The purpose is to establish the framework of a school program 
that will be so elastic that any desirable combination may be made 
for both pupils and teachers. Forty-five, sixty, ninety minutes, or any 
other time may be used in place of fifty minute school periods. With 
a sixty minute school period the school day would be from 8:30 to 
4:30. Two hundred and forty minutes of actual regular class room 
work is provided and a proportionate increase in the time given to 
auditorium, play and special work. The school is enabled to occupy 
as much or as little of the child's time as is found to be desirable. 
With the combination of work, play and study, the school can elimi- 
nate the destructive street and alley life and substitute therefor con- 
structive, wholesome activities. 

Any desired arrangement of auditorium, play and special work 
may be made. The following illustrates a type of school program 
planned for a school with limited auditorium and play facilities and 
many children at churches for religious instruction: 



X School — Modified Program. 

24 classes, all grades, 1 to 8 divided into four divisions for special 
activities. 





Regular 
Activities 


Special 


Activities 




School 
Hours 


Academic 
24 Classes 


vuditorlum 


Play 


Special Work and 
Church — 4 Spe- 
cial Rooms, Li- 
brary. 




8:30- 9:15 


Arithmetic 
Divs. 1, 2, 3, 


4 










9:15-10:00 


Language 
Divs. 1, 2, 3, 


4 










10:00-10:45 




Div. 1 


Div. 3 


Divs. 2 and 4 




10:45-11:30 




Div. 3 


Div. 1 


Divs. 2 and 4 




11:30-12:30 


24 


Classes X School at Lur 


icheon 




12:30- 1:30 


Reading 

Divs. 1. 2, 3, 


4 










1:30- 2:15 


History 
Divs. 1, 2, 3, 


4 










2:15- 3:00 


Geography 
Divs. 1. 2, 3, 


4 










3:00- 3:45 




Div. 2 


Div. 4 


Divs. 1 and 3 




3:45- 4:30 




Div. 4 


Div. 2 


Divs. 1 and 3 


= 



19 



Summary of Time Schedule. 

PUPILS' TIME, MINUTES PER WEEK. 

All pupils have forty per cent, more time in school. 



School 
Department 


Division 1 


Division 2 


Division 3 and 4 




X 

School 


New York 
Minimum 


X 

School 


New York 
Minimum 


X 

School 


New York 
Minimum 


Academic 

Auditorium . . . 
Play 


1200 
225' 
225' 
450' 


840' 
75' 
80' 

280' 


1200' 
225' 
225' 
450' 


840' 

75' 

150' 

250' 


1200 
225' 
t50' 
225' 


1st 
880' 
75' 
300' 


2nd 
1090' 
75' 
180' 


Work 


Included in 
Academic Time. 


Total 


2100' 
2100' 


1275' 
1500' 


2100' 
2100' 


1315' 
1500' 


2100' 
2100' 


1255' 


1345' 


Full Time 


1200' 


1500' 



I do not wish to urge the adoption of any set form or design of 
program. The variety of ways in which greater opportunities for 
children may be secured through a work, study and play school is one 
of its chief recommendations. We need elasticity and adaptability in 
our school program and curriculum, not rigidity. The great problem 
is to learn what kind of a school our children should have, and we 
should always be learning. 

Children who are not very strong physically may spend the entire 
day at school in play, special work, and any other activities that may 
help them to become well. A few cots and blankets should be placed 
In each school so that the children who need it may sleep out of 
doors in protected places during the school hours from which they 
may be excused. There is no good reason why children should not be 
sent to school as they would be sent to a sanitarium, to be developed 
and made well physically as well as developed mentally. 

A large part of the following evils may be eliminated: keeping 
of children after school hours for make-up work, with the great waste 
of energy for both pupil and teacher; excessive home study; flunking 
pupils, which usually graduates them to the sidewalk. A boy in the 
eighth grade who is failing in percentage because he did not get the 
common and decimal fractions in the fifth or sixth grade may go on 
with his class in percentage in the X School. But when his class 
goes to the auditorium, play or special work, he may be transferred to 
a fifth or sixth grade class in arithmetic in the Y School. There Is 
no good reason why all children should have exactly the same pro- 
gram either in school or in out of school activities. As far as possi- 
ble, each child should have what he personally needs. If any boy 
needs one, two, three or four hours each day in arithmetic, English or 
physical training, he should be accommodated. 



20 



The regulation of this flexible program both in the school and out 
of the school is a very simple matter and soon becomes almost auto- 
matic. In fact, most of the need for exacting regulation and discipline 
in school disappears when the school ceases to be so exacting and 
attempts to serve its patrons in the way they want to be served. 

All child welfare agencies that can meet the needs of the children 
as well as or better than the school should have the opportunity to 
get the children at any hour of the day and every day so that they 
may work at their maximum efficiency. The school should get out of 
the way of the other child welfare agencies and by co-operation with 
them serve as a sort of clearing house for children's activities. 

When every class room, laboratory, shop, studfo, playground, gym- 
nasium, swimming pool, auditorium, library, museum, church, social 
settlement and home can be working at maximum efficiency all of the 
time, providing wholesome activities for children, then we may hope 
to teach all children the ART OF RIGHT LIVING. 

Overcoming Inertia. 

The only obstacles to securing such a co-operation of all child 
welfare agencies are a lack of comprehension of the changed indus- 
trial and social conditions in modern cities, and the failure to under 
stand that public service institutions cannot be the private, exclusive 
possessions of individuals. 

Individual families can no longer do for their respective children 
what the family formerly did for its children. The public must 
supplement the efforts of the home and do for the children the things 
that the home cannot do. But the public must perform its work 
through public service institutions, and not in the private, individual, 
exclusive way of the family. 

The public provides at public expense only those facilities that 
we can use in common and cannot afford to provide for our own 
private, exclusive possession, because of the limited use that we are 
able to make of them. The only reason why the public, that is our- 
selves collectively, can afford to provide things for each of us indi- 
vidually that we cannot provide for ourselves privately is that col- 
lectively we secure a multiple use of the facilities. We cannot afford 
collectively anything that we cannot afford privately, if we eliminate 
the multiple use. We can provide for our private exclusive use a 
bedroom in our home because we use it eight to ten hours almost 
every night in the year. When we travel, however, we must use bed- 
rooms in common with other travelers. We would not think for a 
moment of sub-letting our home bedroom to some one else when we 
cannot use it, but we expect our hotel bedroom to be sub-let when we 
cannot use it. 

A few very rich persons may be able to afford hotel bedrooms 
reserved perpetually for their private, exclusive use, even though they 

21 



seldom use them. The people collectively provided for Louis XIV the 
magnificent palace and park at Versailles. Without the multiple use 
of this property provided by the people collectively it was reserved 
for the exclusive enjoyment of one of their number. But the people 
all wished to share in this collective possession and through the 
French Revolution took possession of such private estates for the 
common use. 

Public lighting systems, v/ater-works, telephones, transportation 
systems, etc., are all an outgrowth of community effort for the com- 
mon good. This change in the attitude of mind of the masses is the 
thing that has made possible modern commercial, industrial and 
social progress. We have constantly before us an enlargement of the 
principle of multiple service of public facilities. The idea is that 
increasing the number of persons using any public facility either 
under public or private ownership betters the service for all provided 
the load can be uniformly distributed during operating hours. The 
problem with a public lighting or transportation service is to elimi- 
nate peak loads as far as possible. 

The public school as it is now operated is not a public service 
institution of this type. In the school every administrative effort is 
made to increase peak loads and prevent the equalization of the load 
on all departments during operating hours. The so-called public school 
in many respects is the old time private school now maintained at 
public expense. Each child must have his own private desk, etc., for 
exclusive personal use, even though the combined use of all the school 
facilities will not total two and one-half hours a day for each of the 
365 days of the year. The use of the auditorium will not average 
more than ten minutes each day of the year and the playgrounds 
barely an hour each day of the year. 

The result of such a system is that many children are forced to 
attend school in basements and cellars; a large per cent, are in over- 
crowded, poorly ventilated and lighted school rooms; and many of 
those who are in fine buildings are in greatly overcrowded rooms. A 
favored few are in fine buildings without overcrowding, but they do 
not have the best use of their privately possessed facilities because 
the necessary operation charge under the conditions is prohibitive. 
These favored few in the fine schools without overcrowding are occu- 
pied in the wasteful, private, exclusive use of the facilities of the 
school for only two and one-half hours a day. The church, the settle- 
ment house, the Sunday school, the library and the public playground 
do not occupy the time of all the children, on the average, ten minutes 
each day for 365 days during the year, largely because of the rigid 
school program. While all of the child welfare agencies outside the 
home occupy the time of the children for barely two and one-half 
hours a day, the street and the alley have at least five hours a day. 
The street offers the major courses and the school the minor courses. 

22 



The street is a most efficient school for educating the children in the 

wrong direction. 

The private exclusive feature of the use of public school facxhties 
has meant and will continue to mean that all of the people collec- 
ti" ircan provide suitable school facilities for only a part of their 

number. , , . „..,„„ 

But the average city wants to provide the best school faciUties. 
not for study alone but for work and play as well, for all the children^ 
TO s-ceed we must find a way to let the public use tl^e pubhc schoo 
institution in a public service way. More than one child must be 
able to use each facility during the school day and adults must be 
permitted to use them at night. 



23 



Vocational Training 

Vocational training in ttie Elementary School means to me effi- 
ciency in all present school departments for all children from the 
kindergarten through the high school. 

In Public School 89 we hope to provide better facilities for all 
the children in all of the school subjects. The academic and cultural 
studies will be emphasized as they have never been emphasized before. 
There is no thought of adding a vocational training department, but 
vocational training opportunities. 

The additional opportunities in vocational training will be secured 
through an extension of your regular manual training departments. 
At present with only 80 minutes per week in manual training and a 
new set of pupils every period and every day of the week, the criti- 
cism of manual training is only a criticism of the conditions under 
which your manual training is being done. If you will provide bet- 
ter conditions for manual training and domestic science and art, 
your regular established departments will expand and adapt their 
work to suit the vocational training needs of the children better than 
any separate and competing department will meet them. 

/ believe there is a place for the special industrial training school, 
hut it should be a technical school for older students. You cannot 
make plumbers, carpenters or machinists of boys tioelve and thirteen 
years of age. The minimum apprenticeship age for most trades is 
sixteen years. A large per cent, of the children who drop out of 
school do not have to go to work and would be much better off in 
school until they are sixteen. A work, study and play elementary 
school will keep them in school until they are sixteen. The most 
effective means of keeping children in school is to provide real work 
corresponding to life experience along with school instruction so that 
they may learn why they should remain in school. 

Such life experience should begin for all children in the primary 
grades and continue throughout the entire school course. The child 
is a natural scientist. He is always observing, collecting and classify- 
ing. It Is much easier to keep good impulses alive by constant exer- 
cise than it is to awaken them after they have died out through 
inactivity and in their place competing interests have developed 
through several years' loafing in the street. 

A father purchased a double cylinder steam engine as a Christmas 
present for his ten-year-old son. They fired it up together. Soon the 
boy remarked, "Daddy, here is a first-class lever." The father was 
surprised to learn that the lad knew well the three classes of levers 
and that he was studying elementary science at school. The same 

24 



engine was later handed to three seventeen-year-old boys with the re- 
quest that they point out the levers. These boys had just completed 
four months of the high school physics course covering the subject 
of mechanics. But it was their first science work and they were 
engaged in the struggle of awakening lost interests. They looked the 
engine over from top to bottom, front to rear and side to side, handed 
it back and were unanimous in the opinion that there wasn't any lever 
there. 

"The work of shop, kitchen, sewing room, accounting room and 
garden must be thoroughly intellectualized. The pupil workers must 
be brought to see in connection with every other factor and process of 
the work the mathematics involved, the science, the drawing and 
design and the economic relations. Technical information is for guid- 
ance. It is best learned during the process of guidance of actual 
work. It is learned for purposes of application. Only thus can mathe- 
matics, science, drawing and design be rightly known or seen in right 
relations. This learning in connection with application does not pre- 
clude discussion; it lays the only secure foundation for intelligent 
discussion and for the intelligent generalization of principles involved. 
Only out of concrete situations can one ever arrive at a generalization 
that has reality." 

"Speaking generally, it can be said that we find the concrete 
practical activities over on the one hand very largely unillumined with 
mathematics, science and design; and on the other hand we find this 
same science, mathematics and design given without concrete founda- 
tion or application. Two things that belong together are found 
divorced from each other. Neither can be educationally effective in 
any high degree until they are brought together." 

We must spend our money at the bottom and at the middle of 
our school courses as well as at the top. Providing expensive schools 
for older children to reawaken lost impulse and eradicate acquired 
vicious interests is like trying to keep back the ocean tide with a 
broom. No amount of money spent for Vocational Schools or any 
other kind of school, at the top, will ever repair the damage done to 
the children forced to attend school in cellars, basements, assembly 
rooms and overcrowded class rooms or atone for the waste of their 
childhood in the street. 

At sixteen, children who leave the school should have had experi- 
ence in various industrial activities and in the sciences and arts so 
that they may know what they do not like as well as what they do 
like. Unquestionably the school should do what it can for the unfor- 
tunate few who must leave school to go to work at fourteen. The best 
thing that can be done for such children is to prevent their leaving 
the school by using as far as possible continuation and co-operative 
courses. 

25 



Recommendations. 

These needs can be met at Public School 89 by doing the fol- 
lowing: 

First — Permit the part time manual training and domestic sci- 
ence teachers to give all of their time to this school and give all sixth, 
seventh and eighth grade children manual training and domestic 
science 100 minutes every day for one-third of the school year. While 
one-third of the students are in manual training and domestic science 
classes one-third should be in elementary science and one-third in 
drawing and music. The only increase in the cost of instruction is 
the placing of the manual training and domestic science teachers on 
duty in the one school full time, in place of half time. 

Second — The regular manual training shop work should be sup- 
plemented by co-operative courses between the school manual training 
shop and the workmen employed on school repair and construction 
work. The school repair and construction work should be done as far 
as possible when the children are in school. By association all chil- 
dren will learn something of the industrial activities involved in such 
repair and construction work. 

The manual training teacher may ask his boys if they would like 
to know what the work of a real carpenter is like. They are not 
asked if they want to be carpenters. They are toJd that a carpenter 
will come to the school on a certain day to do certain work about the 
building. Two or three boys may be selected to secure a job with this 
carpenter as helpers. These particular boys directly and the entire 
class indirectly now need instruction as to the right way to apply for 
a job. When they begin work they keep a record of what they have 
learned each day by observation, asking questions and direct experi- 
ence. When they return to the manual training class, because the 
work is finished or they give up their jobs to other boys, the carpen- 
ter's trade is discussed from every standpoint. The same program is 
followed with the school plumber, cabinetmaker, electrician, heating 
man, steam fitter, sheet metal worker, painter and decorator, plasterer, 
mason, cement man, glazier, etc. Intelligence concerning trade activi- 
ties is developed by working with real workmen on real work and 
studying each trade in a systematic way. The reports made in the 
manual training shop may be presented in the auditorium by the 
boys and by the workmen themselves. 

No workman should be permitted to earn more than his salary 
and the cost of his material. The help of the boys should only bal- 
ance the time required by the boys from the workman. 

The school engineer may have boys studying the heating, lighting 
and ventilating plant in the same way. The school clerk may have 
several children assisting in turns with the clerical and store room 
work of the school. Students may assist in managing the auditorium, 
as science laboratory assistants, as assistants on the playground and 

26 



in the drawing and music studios. The community activities of the 
school provide the need for children to assume responsibility; to do 
things accurately, promptly and regularly; and to become familiar 
with tools, processes and general industrial and commercial condi- 
tions. The girls in the domestic science classes may assume the re- 
sponsibility of running the school lunch rooms and the business train- 
ing so secured will round out and complete the training secured from 
the domestic science classes. 

You might as well try to teach children to swim without water 
in which to swim as to try to teach them to work without real work 
to do. The child must not only have a place to work, tools to work 
with and a master workman to direct his work, but there must be real 
work to do, and it must be done under normal industrial conditions. 

Many a boy goes into the electrical industry from the school 
electrical shop with the idea that he knows quite well the trade and 
that it is above all things else the very thing that he wishes to do. 
Since he has not learned to build motors, generators, etc., he will be 
placed at work on the transmission lines. The first time he is asked 
to climb a pole it is discovered that he cannot work off the ground on 
account of dizziness. The first time he goes down into a tunnel and 
comes out covered with grease he may decide that he has made a big 
mistake in choosing his vocation. 

I once placed in a machine shop a young man twenty years old 
who had been recommended as exceptional for the machinist's trade 
by his school instructor. The young man was so sure that he wanted 
to be a machinist that he made every preparation to settle down for 
a life's job. The manager of the shop gave him the privilege of select- 
ing the type of work that he wished to do and offered to change him 
to other work any time at his request. The boy could not be induced 
to stay with the work more than a week, and is now happy as a gov- 
ernment surveyor, engaged in field work. 

One week of two hours a day on a real job with a real workman 
Is worth more from the standpoint of vocational guidance than two or 
three hours a day every day in the year in an artificial shop v/orking 
on artificial work and under artificial conditions, even though a master 
workman is in charge. 

The boys may receive their credits for work done with workmen 
through a system of time keeping and school credit checks which illus- 
trate the relative earning power of various activities and provide addi- 
tional vocational training opportunities. The School Building Depart- 
ment will find it advantageous to establish a shop in a central lo- 
cation for the sheet metal man, also for the electrician, the plumber 
and each of the other workmen. These shops should be established 
because they are necessary for the economical handling of the school 
repair and construction work. Later it will be found that a foundry, 

27 



forge shop, machine shop and pattern shop will add to the efficiency 
of the department from the standpoint of getting the work done. So 
the educational opportunities are expanded by every increase in effi- 
ciency in handling this school repair and construction work. 

There is no objection to the addition of shops beyond the actual 
needs of the repair and construction department, if you can afford 
them. In fact, co-operative courses can be eliminated entirely. My 
judgment is, however, that the amount of absolutely necessary repair 
work in the schools of the types mentioned is sufficient in quantity to 
provide all of the vocational training opportunities for the elementary 
school. Any group of ten or twelve average school plants has appro- 
priated for 1915 for repairs, construction and supplies a sufficient 
amount to employ eight or ten workmen for the school year as em- 
ployees of the Building Department. Each workman should be held 
responsible for the satisfactory condition of the buildings of the group 
in his division. It is largely an individual building unit proposition 
and in my opinion can be applied to any number of buildings and the 
work can be done with less overhead charge and more economically 
than it can be done under a contract system. 

All that I desire is that the department give the plan a trial 
under fair conditions. The schools are asking private industries to 
help train the students in co-operative courses. Why cannot the school 
do in its own busiriess departments what it expects private enterprise 
to do? 

"If it Is objected that students cannot do good enough work, it 
must be observed that if their work is not good enough for the schools 
then they are not sufficiently educated to turn out into the world of 
economic industry. Simply, their education is incomplete. Responsi- 
bility rests on the schools to perfect it. And the having of such real 
work to do offers the best possible educational opportunity. The school 
may also object that such work is slow. If well done, it usually is. 
The school must exercise foresight and plan a long way ahead. Edu- 
cational opportunities must not be thrown away merely because it is 
easier to throw them away than to utilize them. Such action is an 
evasion of responsibility and done merely because the work would be 
difficult. It is difficult, it is true. The world presents no tasks more 
difficult than those of real education. To direct a group of embryo 
workmen, using valuable material that must not be wasted, turning 
out a product that is to be permanent, intellectualizing all the proc- 
esses so as to build at the same time permanent educational struc- 
tures within the boy, so to speak — all this constitutes a form of labor 
immensely more difficult than the labors of the usual construction 
foreman who is looking to but one-half as much product and is getting 
that half from men already trained. If the community is wise, how- 
ever, it is not going to permit our profession to shirk responsibility 
merely because it is difficult. It will not permit us to palm off a com 

28 



blnation of book work and play shop work as 'just as good' when it is 
really an Inferior and ineffective substitute." 

The community activities of Public School 89 are sufficient to give 
one hundred and sixty children two hours' instruction each day in 
small groups of four to six students each. Three hundred and twenty 
hours' Instruction are thus secured daily at no cost for salaries or 
material. This is equivalent to the work of three full time traditional 
vocational instructors. A traditional vocational instructor at estab- 
lished wages receives approximately ten cents per hour for each stu- 
dent taught. Ten cents per hour for only six students will pay the 
wages of the average workman and give him a class small enough to 
make possible real productive work. But the instruction with the 
workman does not cost anything since the workman earns his wages 
In productive work, and the three hundred and twenty hours secured 
are worth several times that amount of traditional vocational educa- 
tion instruction. 

The habit formed In school of securing jobs under the direction 
of the manual training teacher is continued when the child leaves the 
school. The student should be kept in school at least part of the day 
until he secures a job. When he is out of work he should return to 
school for part time or full time until he secures another job. The 
wage earning child should feel free to discuss with the manual train- 
ing teacher at all times his ambitions, obstacles and progress in indus- 
try. Such a relationship helps to bring about naturally the continua- 
tion and co-operative courses for wage earning children. 

The problem of industrial education for girls is much more diffi- 
cult than that for boys. Women are not industrially free. Until the 
artificial barriers are obliterated that now limit the activities of 
women no complete solution can be found. All girls need to be 
trained well in the art of home-making. But some of them may 
never run homes and many of them must be wage earners before they 
have a chance to make homes. Even in the office work of many indus- 
tries it is important that girls know something of industrial shop 
practice. There is no reason why girls should not have short courses 
in some of the shops planned for boys. Attending school in a boys' 
industrial school enables girls to secure a viewpoint of industrial 
processes that may be of great value to them. 

It would be a simple matter in the school to teach so many chil- 
dren one certain trade that there would be no market for the labor. 
One of the advantages in limiting the industrial training in the school 
to the school community industrial needs is that the several industries 
in the school have approximately the same ratio to each other that 
these Industries have to each other outside of the school. The oppor- 
tunities to teach plumbing from the school work are in proportion to 
the need for plumbers. The same is true of electricians, painters, etc. 
Continuation and co-operative courses have the sap^e natural check 

29 



upon the unwise emphasis upon any one trade. The only safe rule In 
industrial training is to keep the school and the shop working to- 
gether, each supplementing the other. 

There is a great danger that public funds may be used to teach 
large numbers of children certain highly specialized activities that 
they will never use, when their time might have been spent much 
more profitably. Power machine sewing is unquestionably a good 
thing for the girls in the Manhattan Trade School. But an unwise 
extension of power machine sewing to the average elementary school 
might not serve the best interests of a large majority of the girls. 

There is also a great danger that young children may make a 
playhouse of school shops under wrong conditions. There is a great 
danger that tcork may be attempted far in advance of their stage of 
development. Children may be unfitted for almost any type of indus- 
trial training by a wrong start. 

The industries taught in the school should be selected because 
they serve as a foundation for mastering the processes of other indus- 
tries as well as offer opportunities for employment in their oivn field. 
Good manual training courses serve as foundation courses, but they 
do not train for immediate employment. But the immediate employ- 
ment factor should be secured by supplementing manual training 
courses with real shop experience, not by throwing the manual train- 
ing away. 

Practical science and drawing courses develop principles that 
have a common application to all industries. Science courses should 
receive as much time and be favored with as good equipment as shop 
courses. 

The study of industry now under way in connection with your 
continuation and co-operative classes will furnish very valuable in- 
formation. So will the study of the common principles in groups of 
industries, if it is completed. If such information can be secured, it 
will make the establishment of school shops something more than a 
guessing contest. 

N'f.te--T!u- .|ui)talions are Irom lln- South Bend Srlionl Survey l)y Dr. Joliu Franklin Bobbin. 



30 



Conclusion 

In conclusion I wish to call special atUntion lo the following: 
When Public School 89 was visited by President Cliurchill. Dr. Max 
well, Dr. Ettinger and others, and it was decided to attempt a reorgan 
izatlon, two physical training teachers were immediately provided at 
my request as extra teachers. This was necessary for starting the 
demonstration. The other needs of the school were not so urgent and 
they could well wait for the regular procedure. No time has been 
lost, but it is now necessary to expedite matters. 

I wish the following to be considered by the proper committees^ 
and other authorities as soon as possible: 
1— Full time for manual training and cooking teachers, with permis 

sion to give instruction as described on page 26. 
2— Branch of public library with trained librarian in charge. 
3-Special Activities departmentalized so that the physical training 

teachers will not be extra teachers, as shown on page 9. 
4— Permission to use the community activities of the school for Voca 

tional Training, as described in last section of report, pages 2o- 

31. 
5— Permanent improvements as requested on page 5 and 6. 
6-Manual Training shop work supplemented by school repair work; 

see pages 25-31. 
7_Schools for additional demonstrations. 



31 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 115 444 7 



THE FROEBEL SCHOOL 
PRINT SHOP 



